I'm Not Gonna Lie by George Lopez Page A

that you will see yourself naked. In fact, stay in the shower long enough for every mirror in the bathroom to steam up so you don’t accidentally catch a peek at yourself. This advice is worth repeating:
    Keep a robe close.
    I keep my robe right outside the shower. All I do is reach out and grab it. No strain, no fumbling. I even double-check that my robe is in go position the night before. I take no chances.
    Sometimes when I scrub myself with soap, I close my eyes and I think, “Why did I close my eyes? I don’t have any soap in my eyes.”
Then I remember: I don’t want to see myself. That’s why I closed my eyes—to protect myself. Listen, this is a fact: Guys chase boobs their whole lives. If you live long enough, you’ll get the ones you’ve always wanted. Except they’re on you. I know guys who say, “I don’t like big boobs. I like them smaller, just about a handful.” Well, wait around. You’ll get ’em.
    Keeping yourself in shape is really important, but you have to be careful what activities you do, what sports you play, what type of exercise you choose. When you’re in your twenties, you feel invincible. You never get hurt unless you actually do something to get yourself hurt, because in your mind, you’re still in high school. You play soccer, or hockey, or basketball, or hardball. Some guys even drag their wives or girlfriends along to watch them. Believe me, they don’t want to be there, and when you’re married for a few more years, they will make you pay.
    When guys hit their thirties, they keep playing the same sports that they should’ve given up ten years earlier, but now their bodies have started to let them down. A lot of dudes keep playing basketball through their thirties and into their forties. They’re playing with fire. All of a sudden—
rrriip
—all these guys tear their Achilles, which is God’s way of telling you to sit the hell down and choose another activity. Golf. Or pool. Or craps.
    When you pass fifty, you hurt yourself without doing anything. You pull muscles and tear tendons while you sleep. I woke up one morning, and I couldn’t move. I blamed the mattress. It had to be the mattress, because I honestly didn’t do anything. All I did was sleep. The only thing I could come up with was that the mattress messed me up. I couldn’t accept that maybe I pulled a muscle changing position on my pillow.
    A couple of months ago, I decided that I had to do something to get in better shape. I play golf, I stretch, and I’m pretty flexible, but I needed to add some aerobic exercise to build up my wind and strengthen my heart. Plus I was worried about the bad genes in my family. My grandmother had heart issues in her forties. I realize that part of her problem was both cultural and the time we lived in. In her experience, nobody joined a gym and nobody cared what they ate. My grandmother lived on a diet of lard, butter, pork, beans, and cheese. Salad? There were no salads. Nobody had heard of a salad. It was like an exotic food, or something you could get only in a French restaurant.
    My grandmother tried to be weight conscious, but she didn’t work out or walk or run or do any form of exercise. I remember one day, when I was around eleven, she came home with a box. She carried this thing into the house and set it up in the middle of the living room. She said, “This is a sweatbox. Very expensive. It’s good for you. Don’t touch it.”
    She left the room and I circled the thing like it was some strange, magical creature. I reached out and rubbed the side for one second, then drew my hand back immediately as if I’d been burned. A couple minutes later my grandmother came back in wearing a bathing suit. She had a towel draped around her neck. She opened one of the sides of the box, stepped inside, closed the box around her, hit a switch somewhere, and turned the hot box on.